


Worth the Wait

by juliaaamarieee



Category: IT (Movies - Muschietti), IT - Stephen King
Genre: Angst, Coming Out, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Fluff and Humor, Gay, IT fanfic, M/M, Reunions, Richie Tozier Loves Eddie Kaspbrak, Stephen King - Freeform, The Jade of the Orient (IT)
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-11-10
Updated: 2020-01-01
Packaged: 2021-01-27 03:28:55
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,374
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21385342
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/juliaaamarieee/pseuds/juliaaamarieee
Summary: "Yet, Eddie's there, so the same, so different, and everything Richie has ever wanted or needed, everything his thirteen-year-old self knew he would still love even when they wereoldpeople, like, overtwentyor something."-Little fic of when Richie first sees Eddie at the Jade of the Orient after 27 years, and what comes from it.
Relationships: Eddie Kaspbrak & Richie Tozier, Eddie Kaspbrak/Richie Tozier
Comments: 16
Kudos: 84





	1. Showtime

**Author's Note:**

> This is just me wanting to play with the emotions of Richie seeing Eddie for the first time after 27 years, and how that feels for him, and how he handles it. This is my first IT fic so be nice! Indulgent angst and fluff from my poor Reddie heart.

**DERRY, MAINE, 2016.**

_Ghost town._

Those are the first words that spring into Richie Tozier’s mind as he coasts along the narrow, stilted streets of the town where he grew up. The fiery, shiny red paint of his convertible sticks out like a sore thumb against the surrounding rusty pickups and bug-eyed Jeeps that look like they haven't gotten a paint job since ‘84, and the only thing he can think is, _I don't belong here._

_But you did, at one point, didn't you, Trashmouth?_

Yes, he supposes he did. But that was twenty-seven Christmases and one fifty-second phone call ago; he hardly remembers living here at all as a child, let alone belonging. To be completely honest with himself, he hadn't remembered this town at all until a few days ago, when he’d gotten the stupid friggin’ call and Mike Hanlon had been all like, ‘Is that you, Richie?’ and he’d been like, ‘Who the fuck are you?’ except not in as many words, and Mike had told him to come back home, to _Derry_, and Richie’s legs had gone numb and his avocado salad had taken a sprint up his throat, and he’d vomited off the side of a building, a tremor running up and down his body. He was scared, that's what he was, without the slightest idea why; but the hairs on the back of his neck were standing at attention and his stomach was flip-flopping again. 

_“You wanna clue me in? You know, on who you are, why you called me, how you got my number, why two seconds before you called me I was all fine and fucking dandy, and now my lunch is all over the sidewalk? I don't know, seems like the least you can do,”_ he'd wanted to say into the phone, but he'd already hung up without remembering ever doing so. And then he’d been on in thirty seconds and he’d had to go on stage anyway, no matter that he royally screwed up the lines that weren't even his. _The show must go on. Showbiz, baby._

But then it started coming back; bits and pieces, mostly. The kids. God, those kids that were his fucking _family_ that summer. Then, _Richie ‘Trashmouth’ Tozier_, isn't that what they called him? He could see the dam they built, the trouble they caused, that mullet-wearing asshole they had to keep running from, friggin’ psycho with his dad’s knife. Kid probably killed cats in his spare time, then fed them to his fuckin’ mother. Swimming in the lake in their underwear. 

Bill. Beverly. Stanley. Ben. Mike. _Eddie_. Seemingly all at once, their faces came into his mind and a million memories accompanying each one--some more than others--but no explanation as to 

_(red balloons?)_

why he’d nearly shit his pants when Mike called, or why a mock version of a family reunion was urgent enough to uproot every single one of the old gang, calling sounding like he was being held at gunpoint or some shit over the phone. What the fuck, Mike? _Nice to see you all, who's balding? What, wanna do a shot for old time’s sake? Down the hatch, now I gotta get going, this was fun, but not exactly worth the gas money it took to get up here and kiss all your asses._

_Beep-beep, Richie._ He’s not being fair, and he knows it. There's something more here, something he’s missing, and he knows that part of the reason he’s cracking unfunny jokes alone in his car is because he doesn't want to deal with it. Doesn't want to think about it. Besides, there's more important things to dwell on, like the fact that Eddie Kaspbrak is gonna be there. God, he feels like a friggin’ teenaged girl, wondering if her crush is going to make it to the party. _Oh my god, Sarah, what if Johnny's there? Should I match my bra to my panties just in case?_

Okay, maybe he doesn't want to dwell on that thought anymore. He was a kid and Eddie was a kid and they were friends, even best friends, and maybe he had dreams that they were kissing and teased him a little harder than anyone else in the group, but that didn't mean anything, right? It's not like he cares at all twenty-seven years later. Hell, he hadn't even thought about that inhaler-sucking, fanny pack-wearing idiot in decades, so why care if he shows up to the family barbecue? He grits his teeth and switches on his windshield wipers. When did it start raining? But it always rained in Derry. His old basement flooded more times than he could count, and

_(the sewers)_

it’s perfectly normal for a dingy little coastal town to spritz a little on a June evening--

_(sewers!)_

A blaring truck horn brings Richie back to the present, the present where he had just ran a red light whose yellow was just a little too stale. 

“Sorry,” he mutters to himself, knowing the pissed-off driver couldn't possibly hear him, but his mind is elsewhere again. 

_I'm here. _

_(Home at last?)_

Looming before him is the Jade of the Orient, a shockingly fancy Chinese restaurant that certainly hadn't been around when he was a kid. But this is the designated meeting spot, and Richie feels himself turn the wheel and park his car more than really doing it himself, his spirit seemingly hovering above his actual body. He palms the tops of his thighs--Keys? Wallet?--and then, _stop stalling, you little bitch._

He takes a breath and steps out of his vehicle. _Showtime._

He’s nearly up to the door when he notices a man and a woman blocking his path. He blinks and looks again, feeling his insides chill at the way it feels like time had simultaneously stopped, gone back in time to when he knew them, then sped forward at breakneck speed, years whizzing past until he’s forcibly placed back in the present. Beverly Marsh, who’d only gotten prettier, good for her, and--_Ed..?_\--but then the man is turning around and Richie’s faced with Ben Hanscom, looking as though someone had ripped off the facial features of his childhood friend and stuck them on a fucking underwear model. He can practically see the abs behind his tastefully loose dress shirt, and Richie wants to crack a joke almost as much as he wants to barf again. This is going to be harder than he thought, which was already pretty friggin’ hard. 

Then he finds his voice, which admittedly has never been hard for Richie to do. “Well, you two look amazing,” he begins dryly, sticking his fretting hands in his jacket pockets. “What the fuck happened to _me?_”

There's a moment of silence, but all at once, they begin to laugh, and the tension is splintered like a toothpick. Beverly moves towards him, a smile lighting up her face that somehow feels like it never changed. “Richie!” She says, giving him a genuine hug, a whole package including the squeeze. He wraps his arms around her too, placing his chin on top of her head and subconsciously remembering that as prepubescent little shits that ran around all day, Beverly had been the tallest of the bunch. _We’re not kids anymore, dipshit._

When Beverly pulls away, Ben’s reaching out to grasp his shoulder. “Good to see you, Trashmouth,” he’s saying, and Richie is trying to connect this person to the pudgy little boy who was introduced last into the group--_new kid?_\--and probably the sweetest among them. And, yeah, looking into his eyes, he’s still very much there, so much so that he’s surprised he didn’t recognize him at once. Though to be fair, it seems as though every building and person in this town needs at least a double-take before he can connect them to the shadows in his mind. God, what kind of fucking fever dream is this?

“You too, Haystack,” he replies, the nickname falling out of his mouth before he even consciously remembers it.

“Yeah, yeah, almost forgot about that one,” Ben chuckles, flicking Richie a little harder in the back of the head than he had been expecting. Then the three of them are walking into the restaurant. 

“Are you with the Hanlon party?” The hostess greets them gracefully, waiting with wide eyes and her smile never wavering. It’s a little creepy, honestly, how perfectly she plays her role.

“Yep,” they all answer in the affirmative, but Richie’s is slightly louder. Then, lowering his voice to a mutter as he follows the hostess to the private room in the back, “Fuck us.” Richie is used to crowds, used to standing up in front of them, has never been shy or scared of people. But now, as the circular table comes into view and he can start to make out the figures belonging to his shadowy past, he thinks he’s never been more nervous in his life. 

_Maybe you’re just scared to see your little girlfriend,_ a voice in the back of his head nags at him. He tightens his jaw and squeezes his eyes shut for a moment. _Shut the fuck up, Trashmouth._ Then the inner pep talk is over and it’s time to open his eyes, but he finds that he doesn’t really want to. 

His memories of Ben and Bev are already coming back in full force, but tainted by the way they look now--hell, a week ago, if they were walking past him on the street, he wouldn’t have even given them a second glance. If he studies their faces and mannerisms, he can see the children he once knew in them, but they’re fucking grownups now. All of them are. And if he looks into that room and sees the rest of them--sees _Eddie_\--it’ll all be real.

Then he’s opening his eyes and spreading his face into a purposely obnoxious grin. “Buenas noches, ladies! Who the fuck are all you people?”

The room erupts into a mix of groans and cheers, and Richie can’t help but bask in it. For a moment, it feels as though he’d stepped into a time warp, and it’s 1988 again, and they’re all about to pool their pennies to do some stupid shit for the day before making it home before dark, so that they don’t get grounded and Eddie’s mom doesn’t take him to the friggin’ emergency room. It feels like he’s--

_(home at last)_

\--but then Richie spots him, and the spell is broken. Unlike Ben or even Bill, Eddie looks so much like himself that Richie feels like he could recognize him from across the Grand Canyon, without his glasses on. Richie nearly chokes on his tongue, just _looking_ at who Eddie had become, and he has to double his obnoxious levels just so that he doesn’t start undressing the asshat with his eyes or something.

He’s still short and little, thank fuck. If Eddie had surpassed Richie in height, he would have walked right out of the Jade of the Orient and went home and killed himself. He looks down at Eddie’s hand and sees an inhaler. He’s more relieved than he cares to admit _(that’s my boy)_. If Eddie pulled a fucking Ben, he could never forgive him. Yet, Eddie’s there, so the same, so different, and everything Richie has ever wanted or needed, everything his thirteen-year-old self knew he would still love even when they were _old_ people, like, over _twenty_ or something.

_Worth the wait._

They lock eyes right as Eddie’s lifting the asperator to his mouth. He sprays, his eyes bug in recognition, then he audibly chokes. 

“Heya, Eddie, do you mind saving the oral sex with your little toy there ‘til a little later? We’re about to eat.” 

Eddie scrunches his face and rises from his chair. “Fuck you and the horse you rode in on, dickwad.” 

They’re both grinning. Then they’re moving toward each other and connecting--he hadn’t planned for this hug _(did I remember cologne)_ and it wasn’t planned, but he’s melting into him--and they’re slapping each other on the back, hard, and it’s almost pathetic--

_Look at us, gang, lookit this straight hug! Bros, slapping each other like a baby burping after a meal. This is what you do, right?_

But that’s just Richie’s inner monologue. Inner stand-up comic routine that runs day and night. It’s just Richie, always has been. Eddie’s standing there, probably straighter than a fucking board, and Richie follows his lead, trying not to linger his hands anywhere on his body or breathe him in. But he does.

Suddenly, probably for the first time in his life, he’s glad for his glasses, because his eyes are feeling pretty damn prickly. For the first time in twenty-seven years, he thinks about an old fence post with an R+E scratched into the soft wood with a swiss army knife, and a small dark-haired boy with glasses much too large for his face whose heart had pounded and ripped through him, and how he had sped off on his bike right after, feeling as though he’d just committed a terrible crime, but how sweet the sin had tasted in his mouth as the adrenaline pulsed harder and harder in him the he further away he moved from the fence. 

That had been the first time he had ever admitted who he was to himself. He wonders how he ever could have suppressed that memory, forgotten it. And for the first time, he begins to realize that something far more important was waiting for him here in Derry than just a reunion with a bunch of old friends. But as he looks at Eddie and the rest of the Losers 

_(but where’s Stan the Man?)_

and as he listens to Bill speak without even a hint of a stutter, like it was never there, he thinks maybe he doesn’t care. He feels more alive than he has in decades, even if he has a sinking, distant feeling that he’s playing with fire, kissing death on the mouth.


	2. I Missed You

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy New Year, everyone! Sorry this update is so terribly late. First there was writer's block, then there were finals, then there was writer's block again.
> 
> I'm pretty sure this is the last section, because I really intended this to be an angsty oneshot anyway. However, I'm not completely convinced because I sort of want to continue it. Let me know what you think!
> 
> Enjoy :)

Too soon, Eddie moves away from him and back to his seat--yet, maybe not soon enough, because Richie can feel himself trembling under his skin. For a moment, Richie feels an almost undeniable desire to turn around walk out. Why did he think he could do this? College-roommate reunions were bad enough. This is like a _seeing-a-highschool-friend-at-the-grocery-store_ moment on steroids. 

Somehow, he keeps a smile or a grimace or something between the two on his face long enough for his feet to stay firmly on the carpeted ground beneath him. It doesn’t take him long after that to realize he’s now the only Loser still standing upright. Swallowing, he surveys the table and the seating arrangements as subtly as he can, noting there’s a couple empty chairs at the round table. He stumbles into the seat next to Eddie’s, as if he hadn’t meant to sit there. But, by god, he had.

He waits until Eddie’s engaged in a conversation with Bill and Beverly concerning Bill’s book endings until he dares to look at him again. And then, once he starts, he can’t stop looking at Eddie, with his burgundy bomber jacket and polo and blue jeans, looking every inch like a little preppy college boy. He’s clean-shaven, with clean, combed brown hair, clean, soft-looking hands, clean shoes and clothes, all neat and perfect and _sterile_. Richie can tell he still matches and folds his socks for the drawer, still uses hand sanitizer, still lint-rolls his outerwear. He can picture him in a neat little blue scarf and wool jacket in the winter time, and he has to bite his lip to keep from smiling.

This close, he can almost smell him. All at once, a lost memory resurfaces of the time Eddie had sprung into the hammock when Richie was still sitting in it, their legs tangling together as Eddie’s little red shorts had ridden up his thighs, and him toeing Richie’s glasses off of his face, because he was a fucking adorable little attention whore. Richie remembers his cheeks flaming and his entire face on fire, as if he was sporting a hundred-and-two degree fever. Even now, Richie feels his blood warming in his veins, and he has to stuff his mouth full of rice so that no one wonders why he’s not talking.

But once he starts running his mouth, finally engaging in conversation, he can’t stop. His brain seems to have gone on autopilot, allowing every single ounce of dumbass inside of him to take the reigns and control his meat bag. _Hi-ho, Silver! AWAYYYY! Everything goes! Say you married his mother, snore at his job description, next you’ll be taking your dick out of your pants and shoving it down his throat!_

But, of course, there’s another matter entirely. _Eddie is married._

The moment Eddie announced it to the table, Richie’s blood had gone cold. Everyone erupted into a slightly overboard cheer of congratulations, but all Richie had been able to manage was one small whoop. His big mouth had gone dry.

But of course Eddie had gotten married. Why shouldn’t he? They were all painfully adult, and the gold band on his finger had been gleaming and obnoxious once it had been brought to his attention. He doesn’t know how he hadn’t noticed it before. 

And he doesn’t know how it’s even possible to feel hurt and upset about the fact his childhood crush had exercised his human right to get married after twenty-seven years of being apart. But, _Jesus fucking Christ,_ why did it have to be to a _woman?!_

He remembers the short-shorts and long socks that Eddie wore in middle school, a rainbow stripe on his tee shirt, his little neat haircut. And now, looking at him in his late thirties, Eddie Kaspbrack looks like the most stereotypical little fucking twink Richie has ever seen in his life.

_A fucking_ woman, _Eds? Not to hetero-shame or anything, but…_

So, he does the only thing he knows how to do. Later, he’ll look back and cringe, but for now, he’s a little drunk and a lot emotional, and has even less control over his mouth than usual. He sticks his lips around a shot glass and does a blowjob shot of whiskey and spits the glass back onto the table, alcohol dropping from his lips and grinning. “S’wait, Eddie, you got _married?_”

Eddie turns to him, a familiar gleam of challenge in his eyes. “Yo, why’s it so fucking funny, dickwad?” His words are fast and exactly as machine-gun fire as Richie remembers, and it’s like listening to an old favorite song and remembering every single word. 

Richie’s head aches with his fast heartbeat and he replies without even having to think about it. “What, to like, a _woman?_” He immediately blanches, but Eddie takes it so much in stride that Richie doesn’t want to think about what it means. But it doesn’t mean anything, because Eddie’s not gay. They never dated. Obviously. Fuck. But Richie’s still giggling.

Eddie raises a chopstick and waves it in inches in front of Richie’s glasses. “Fuck you, bro.” But it’s so goddam _lighthearted_ and _easy_ and it’s just the banter they’ve always known. Richie is the only friggin’ Loser at the table who’s overthinking anything. ‘Cept for maybe Mike, whose brow is so permanently furrowed that he looks like he’s constipated. Why’d he ever stay in Derry? 

Richie’s still riding the high of seeing Eddie and talking to him and remembering bits and pieces of his childhood and feeling full of Chinese food, so he raises his voice obnoxiously loud. “_Fuck YOUUU!_”

But then, Richie remembers. He remembers it all.

And then nothing matters anymore. Nothing, except for the fucking _clown_ and that asshole Mike who dragged them back to Derry without a single warning. Try this on for size: _come back to Derry, see your old friends that all got hot except for you! Oh, yeah, and you’ll fucking die._

_(You’ll laugh!_

_You’ll cry!_

_You’ll_ die._)_

_Come to Derry, but you’ll never leave._

And then the fortune cookies--his first taste of good, old-fashioned Derry horror for the first time in nearly three decades--and then, _Stan_.

Stanley fucking Uris, the Loser who always seemed the smartest, the oldest, the cleanest, just … _the best_. And he’s dead.

He’s dead, and Pennywise may as well fucking killed him.

He’s gone. There’s only six of them left.

And Richie wasn’t ready for this. He never was. He’s not brave enough. In a blur, he leaves--Eddie hot on his heels--_and, fuck, Eddie_\--and he’s back in his car, hands trembling and half-digested Chinese in his throat. 

He makes his way to the inn where his bags are stored, vision slightly blurred and in a condition that is most certainly unadvised for driving, but the streets are as empty as a nun’s swear jar, and, _has the town always looked this way?_ A shiver runs down his spine as he glances at dark buildings, bags floating down the lamp-lit streets like tumbleweed, and the black, lapping waters that surround the town. Thoroughly chilled, he snaps his eyes to his rearview mirror, almost expecting a pair of horrible yellow eyes to stare back at him from the backseat. 

Nothing's there. “_Fuck,_” he whispers fiercely through clenched teeth and screeches to a halt outside of the Derry Townhouse. Pushing his way past Ben, he lurches for the stairs, announcing that he’s packing his shit and getting the fuck out of here, and ignores the fire inside of him when Eddie trails him so closely on the stairs that their jackets brush together.

He doesn’t allow himself to breathe until he’s laying flat on his back on the shitty mattress of his rented room with broken springs poking into his backbone. Horrified, he finds tears pricking at his eyes behind his glasses. He never wanted to do this again. 

In a distant memory, Ben speaks up at the possibility of Pennywise’s return: _“Who cares? I’ll be forty and far away from here.”_

_Well, here we fucking are, Haystack. All but one._

But Richie’s leaving right? That’s what he said he was doing. That’s why his bag is repacked, stuffed with clothes, lying in the middle of the floor. But the longer he thinks, the less panic he feels to leave; instead, he feels a strange compelling sense to stay. He thinks of Mike’s face when he told him he was leaving. He thinks of Stan.

But most of all, he thinks of Eddie. He’s not ready to leave him. Not again. Not when he’d only gotten him back, if only to see him, or if only for the memories from the summer of 1989. It makes him sick that he’d ever forgotten it, the fucking clown’s magic shit be damned.

A quick, soft knock at the door breaks the silence and Richie’s train of thought along with it. Startled, he struggles to sit up as his back tweaks. “Yeah?”

“Are you decent?” 

He would know that voice anywhere, even if it is deeper than his newfound memories serve. “Come in, Kaspbrak.”

Eddie lets himself in, closing the door behind him and palming his pants, looking rather lost. Then, looking at Richie’s awkward sitting position on the bed, he frowns. “What’re you doing?”

“Just thinking of your mom, Eds. You know I have to be alone when I do that.”

“Fuck you. You’ve never fucking changed, you know that?” Eddie crosses his arms, but his twitching mouth gives him away.

“Neither have you, Eddie my boy. Tell me, do you have those, like, special controls on the steering wheel, or can your feet _actually_ touch the pedals when you drive?” Richie shoots right back, a grin pulling his lips. He actually _feels_ thirteen again. It’s actually kind of exhilarating, the kind of fuckery this town gives off. Or, there’s always the possibility that he’s feeling this way because he has a fucking crush.

“I’m five-nine, dumbass. It’s actually average height for males, and it’s not my fault that you turned into this long-limbed muppet who still never managed to grow into his feet.” Eddie’s eyes actually widen after that one, and Richie finds himself laughing out loud.

“Not bad, Eds, not bad!” He shifts so he’s sitting with his legs hanging off the side of the bed, and gestures at the empty space next to him.

Eddie doesn’t hesitate as long as Richie had expected him to. He joins his side, and for a minute or two, they sit in silence.

Then, “I can’t believe I _forgot_ all this.” Eddie looks at him, and in that moment, all Richie sees is the child he knew so well. His eyes, Richie’s realizing, never changed for a second.

Richie nods. “That’s what I was thinking about. I mean, it’s all so _fucking_ vivid now, right? And, like, two days ago, I didn’t even remember _you guys_. I mean, not just the clown shit, but like, _everyone_.”

Eddie swallows. “I … I missed you, Richie. I mean, I really fucking did.”

His fingers are numb and his head is buzzing, but Richie feels his hand reach over and cover Eddie’s. Eddie freezes, but then his fingers tangle in his, and neither of them are breathing. 

Richie thinks he might be crying.

He thinks, _I love you._

He thinks, _you’re married._

He thinks, _you married someone, and I never did, and I never could, because even though I didn’t remember you, I think a part of me was holding out for you. No one was ever enough for me. Because they weren’t fucking_ you, _Eddie._

_ _But he doesn’t say any of that. Maybe, if fate smiles on them, he’ll get to say all of that and more someday. Someday, when the sun is shining and Pennywise is in his grave, and someday when he can roll over in bed and feel the warmth of his body next to his own. Someday, Richie has to believe, Eddie will be his. Until then, the only thing he can say is,_ _

_ _“Let’s kill this fucking clown.”_ _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yeah, more notes. Sorry the ending was so freaking depressing because we all know what ends up happening.
> 
> Should I turn this into a fix-it fic or keep it short and sweet (and angsty)?
> 
> I would absolutely love if you sent me some kudos or comments :)


End file.
